Loups-Garous Read Online Free Page A

difference now was that children were being uniquely targeted, the method of killing was atrocious, and they couldn’t figure out how it happened. It was certainly disturbing but there was no right or wrong with a killer. In any murder case, a murderer was a murderer. Which stood to reason that there was no reason to get all up in arms now. You want normal?
    This is normal.
    This concept of the abnormal was no longer valid.
    And if you took the things that were abnormal or bizarre, you would eventually see they had no meaning.
    â€œThe situation is imminent. We need a more concrete plan.”
    Shizue was through staring at the corner of her desk, so she looked to the right and saw the face of a fellow member of the welfare department. He looked obsequiously at the terminal, nodding stupidly along to everything the supervisor said.
    Did he feel anything? Or was it coded behavior, involuntary gesturing, meant for precisely this kind of situation.
    How insensitive.
    Really…
    He must not have felt anything. What did you expect from such insensitivity toward language?
    These people—a generation from the end of a millennium—were all obtuse when it came to language.
    You had to define your terms before starting any argument. Words were ambiguous; limiting the breadth of your words assured no confusion in argument. Terrible things happened when you didn’t respect this very basic premise, even when it came to something as simple as collecting data. It was impossible not to be prudent if you couldn’t see the face of the person you were talking to.
    It was hard dealing with people coming into a still-developing culture. They lacked skill and numbers, and because they had such low comprehension levels they were too eager to believe everything and too easily convinced to take sides. That was why they had to be personally confronted with information in order to get the information. Whatever it took…
    Whatever…
    Shizue’s larger generation, born in the twenty-first century, was raised to be personally offended by words whose use lacked consideration. Whatever . That was a pretty thickheaded thing to say. It riled her up despite herself.
    Still.
    Shizue held her breath. Then slowly let it out to calm the ire in her belly.
    The people who raised the insensitive generation that bruised Shizue now were probably even more insensitive. She tried to re-examine the bureaucrat’s face with a more historical appreciation of his stupidity.
    It made her feel better.
    He kept blathering.
    â€œâ€”the body was discovered in this locality, and what’s more it’s a resident of the area, but besides the fact that the victim is a minor, and the possibility of this being one in a string of serial killings notwithstanding, we can’t treat this case as anything less than alarming.”
    That went without saying .
    Shizue looked at the clock on her monitor.
    They’d wasted 1,050 seconds just confirming the obvious.
    In other words .
    The murder discovered this morning wasn’t deemed part of the greater killing spree because this latest victim was male. The others had all been female.
    Based on this information it was decided the prefectural police would take over the investigation. The special investigations unit leader had the chief of Area 122 reporting to him, but otherwise the area chief reported to the prefectural police.
    That was all. They could have gotten all this information in writing and saved themselves a lot of time.
    Still.
    The problem was what had happened before this.
    It just so happened this murder had taken place outside of their jurisdiction. What did they think they’d accomplish now? It was beyond conference meetings to determine protocols for emergency notifications.
    Plus, all these incidents had taken place in adjacent neighborhoods.
    It wasn’t as if there were some physical shield protecting the boundaries between those neighborhoods. Any distinction